Posted
by
samzenpuson Tuesday January 31, 2012 @10:53AM
from the one-man's-junk dept.

coondoggie writes "Some call it the museum of failed inventions and others might just call it the stupidity museum, either way it is officially known as the Museum of Nonsense and it opened in Austria this month. It is decidedly low-tech though it does contain some high-tech ideas like a truly interesting way to anonymize identity (a piece of black card on a stick so people can't see your eyes) and a device that promises to cut down on those huge cell-phone bills (think tin cans and a string)."

I've actually been to that place. I wanted to laugh but probably would have been attacked. They made claims such as that radioactive decay didn't start occuring until modern times, and that light was getting slower. They had an exhibit of a prehistoric scene with a white girl feeding a dinosaur. They didn't even stick to the actual Bible stories. When a projector broke down everyone was singing amazing grace until it was fixed. An *interesting* experience.

I doubt they claimed that radioactive decay didn't occur until "modern times", because that would do the opposite of supporting the "young earth" theory. It's known that carbon dating gets inaccurate at about 11,000 years ago, because environmental conditions affected the decay rate-- that may have been part of their arguments.

The problem being that the creationists try to make it seem as though carbon dating is the only kind of radiometric dating there is, while in fact it's one of many (with slight overlaps, and different accuracy) covering different timespans (some in the range of a billion years).

In fairness, you can't call the creation "museum" a museum. A Museum is dedicated to educating it's visitors. The creation "museum" is, as far as I'm aware, the only museum with the goal of making it's visitors dumber and less informed.

Awesome. I noticed they feature a Noah's Ark exhibit [creationmuseum.org]. Of all the crazy Old Testament stories to hang your pseudo-scientific hat on, are you sure that the ship that carried two of each of the millions of known species that currently exists (since, you know, evolution isn't true) is the one you're gonna pick?

The creationists thought of that long ago. Their answer, simplified for convenience, is roughly that *just enough* evolution happened to make it possible... and no more. Eg, the ark carried two 'cats' which then evolved-but-not-in-the-nasty-darwinist-way into wildcats, domestic cats, lions, tigers, lynxes and all the other cats big and small. They also claim that this isn't due to natural selection, but divine preemptive inclusion of the DNA for all modern cats into the ark proto-cat.

If you really want to stump them, ask why the predatory species didn't immediatly render the prey species extinct. Their answer - and I am not making this up, really, this is the official Answers in Genesis position - is that the ark also carried a plant that grew meat, and the predators all ate that until the herbivores established a sustainable population. The plant is conveniently extinct without trace now, of course.

They *could* just claim 'God did it' for all points, but they consider that to be bad form. Cheating, in a way. They'll use it if they have to, but their first choice is always to try to find an explanation that at least sounds vaguely scientific. Thus you end up with things like hypertectonics, the claim that continential drift used to be really fast (Kilometers per day) so that pangea broke up only a few thousand years ago, but slowed down before we could measure it. This explains how it was possible for

I didn't even get to the bit where they believe the upper atmosphere used to be a giant hollow sphere of crystal-clear ice.

Again, not making it up... though that one is a minority view even to young-earth creationists.

They also believe sin causes mutations. That is their explanation for why mutation-rate dating gives species divergence figures millions of years in the past: Before modern culture started spreading sin all over the place, the mutation rate was much lower.

I didn't even get to the bit where they believe the upper atmosphere used to be a giant hollow sphere of crystal-clear ice.

I remember hearing that in church... That was one of the things that make me start to question the blind creationist theory. While I don't find it hard to believe that a sphere of ice could form around a planet, I find it hard to believe that a sphere of ice formed around THIS planet, while still allowing sunlight through, and not melting until the flood.

It'd also have to be a hollow sphere so people could live under it, with the planet perfectly balanced in the middle - and it'd have to be perfect ice too, as Genesis describes stars pre-flood, which means it must have been optically clear.

and it'd have to be perfect ice too, as Genesis describes stars pre-flood, which means it must have been optically clear.

Oh, so that sort of thing actually exists? All the ice I've ever seen is clearISH, see-through to the point where a thick enough concentration would obscure vision. But if perfectly clear ice exists then I guess that sort of thing would work...

I think it's part of the geek mind-set, take a completely ridiculous idea, then think about things in the real world that could be different enough to make it happen, then think about what else that would change. It's the same line of thinking that leads to science fiction.

Seems they have changed it. It would be more precise to say they believed that before the fall, there existed a plant which grew meat-like bark upon which carnivorous creatures would feed (Needing their sharp claws to strip the bark off). They have now reconsidered that, and decided on grounds of more precise bible translation that carnivores actually could survive based on any plant, and it was only after the fall that they became unable to survive except on meat due to a divine rewriting of their DNA. Pre

If you really want to stump them, ask why the predatory species didn't immediatly render the prey species extinct. Their answer - and I am not making this up, really, this is the official Answers in Genesis position - is that the ark also carried a plant that grew meat, and the predators all ate that until the herbivores established a sustainable population. The plant is conveniently extinct without trace now, of course.

And people wonder how a loony belief system like Scientology can fool so many people.

the ship that carried two of each of the millions of known species that currently exists

Oh, that one's easy! Noah only took two of each animal that existed at the time, which wasn't many. There was only, like, one type of dog. After he landed, speciation [creationwiki.org] occurred, and now there's all sorts of different dogs!

What do you mean a breed is not a species [scientificamerican.com]? Now you're just being difficult on purpose.

As a nearby resident, I am ashamed of that place. And believe it or not, the governor is planning on re-appropriating state funds for this "museum"....despite the clear need in other state-funded areas. Like, oh I don't know, education. Well, now I know who I'm not voting for next gubernatorial election.
On behalf of all Kentuckians, I apologize to the rest of the world.

I actually own a pair of those. I use them not so much anymore for the anonymous properties (because honestly when you're the only person wearing a pair everyone knows who you are) but more because the design allows me to see behind me while wearing them.

Why not build a museum on the history of hoaxes propagated by leading scientists? Over the years, scientists were absolutely sure that some doomsday event would happen. They were sure that the 1910 Haley comet would extinguish all life on Earth; some flu pandemic would kill billions of people because we are "overdue"; the earth is supposed to heat to a fireball, or cool to an ice ball; genetic "degeneracy" would take over the human race; killer bees would wipe out humanity; nuclear war is a certainty; the